Accenture has set a new goal to achieve a gender-balanced workforce, with 50 percent women and 50 percent men, by 2025.
Simply put, we believe the future workforce is an equal one. Gender equality is a global issue, an essential element of an inclusive, innovative workplace and key to competitiveness. We are willing to lead the way.
Currently, women account for 40 percent of today’s global workforce—and only 27 percent are in leadership positions. Yet, research indicates more women in the workplace helps grow the global economy and that closing the gender gap by 50 percent would lead to a six percent increase in global GDP. Companies with strong female leadership also generate a higher return on equity versus those without.
Our goal to reach “50/50 by 2025” reflects our underlying belief that inclusion and diversity makes our business stronger, more innovative, and most importantly, makes the world better.
We believe our focus on attracting, inspiring and advancing women is critical to our future success. That is why we continue to set—and achieve—milestones on the path to gender equality that hold ourselves accountable.
- Currently, we have more than 150,000 women at Accenture—nearly 40 percent of our global workforce.
- We surpassed our goal to reach 40 percent women new hires in 2016.
- Women accounted for 30 percent of our newly promoted managing directors in 2016—a record number at Accenture.
- By 2020, we plan to grow the percentage of women managing directors globally to 25 percent.
Our goal is to achieve a 50/50 gender balance across our global workforce. The number of women in our workforce will vary by geography. Across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand women make up 43 percent of our workforce and 37 percent of our executives are women. This is a good start, which we will build upon.
We have taken a number of actions to attract, retain, advance and sponsor women on our path to achieving this global 50/50 by 2025 goal. They include:
- Sponsoring our most senior women to advance in P&L roles. Since its inception six years ago, approximately 80 percent of women in our global executive leadership program have been promoted or have significantly expanded their areas of responsibility.
- Committing to transparency. We set and publish clear, measurable targets to grow our number of women.
- Launching initiatives that provide women with in-demand skills. Our Women in Technology program, for example, helps fast-track the careers of high-performing women toward the position of Technical Architect—a high-demand, short-supply role.
- Collaborating across business and government. Globally we have with commitments that include the White House Equal Pay Pledge, Paradigm for Parity, and Catalyst CEO Champions for Change that help us further gender equality in the workplace.
For us, this is another significant milestone in our journey to being the most inclusive and diverse company in the world. We embrace diversity as a source of creativity and competitive advantage, and we strive to create an environment where our people can be successful, both professionally and personally.